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Friday, April 25, 2014

At the moment I am currently working on my Dystopian War army in order to complete my new year's resolution. Last post I finished my Battleship, so this week I decided to do something small since I have a busy week at work. Hence the drones!

The drones are a pleasure to paint with respects to army building. All you have to do is give them a base colour, a wash and then paint up the model base with a blue hue. Viola you're done.

I have already painted up ten drones from the starter set, but I decided to do some more just for the fun of it. I had some drones from the Sky Fortress and some more I bought from Ebay.

The first thing I did was give them a black base coat. The next step was to paint the drones and the sides of the base with chainmail and then a black wash. When the whole thing is dry, I give all the tokens a light dry brush of silver to pick out the details.

At this point, I like to let the models dry for an hour or two, before continuing. When they have dried I give them a light wash of emerald green to reflect the hi-tech energy from their arcane science.

The last step is to paint the base blue and build up some waves by dabbing with several light shades. The effect is nice and adequate, besides very quick.

The final step is to paint the tip of the drones with emerald green. A slight touch with a brush loaded with emerald green will do the trick nicely.

And there you have it, twelve flyer tokens done in three hours! Altogether now, I have 22 tokens - I might just paint up two more to have 24, i.e. 4 units of 6 tokens each - but I wont post an article on it !

Next week I will continue with my Dystopian Wars army. The Plutarch Destroyers are up next, followed by some medium flyers. I probably have the next two months dedicated to this, then the first of my resolutions will be complete.

Friday, April 18, 2014

As promised I am back with some pics of the finished Aristotle Battleship. Overall I am quite happy with it. For a paint job that took 6 hours altogether - including the all the problems I had with it, I am satisfied.

With the Dystopian War naval models I took an even simpler approach to painting than I did with the Space Wolves. Basically they are just neat basic colours with washes - albeit being enamel and oil washes. I find this system quick, efficient and very practical for gaming pieces. The models are neat, distinctive and presentable.

The last picture is of my painted force as it currently stands. I have decided to push on Dystopian Wars because in the beginning of June, DW2 will be in full swing and I want to get my forces painted up by then.

Since I am in the swing of things, next week I will continue with Dystopian War models. I have started painting up some smalls naval models and medium flyers. You will see them in the upcoming weeks.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Well after the disappointment of the last post I am back with the ill-fated Aristotle Battleship. I had a day off this week and I dedicated it to Dystopian Wars' models. Among the models I worked on was this one.

I have to say I was sorely tempted to throw it into the dip, strip it and start all over again - but the thing is, this model is a gaming piece. Not only that, it is not even a type of model I keep on display, unlike my Space Wolves which are gaming pieces but which I still keep in my showcase.

This is the type of model I keep stored and take out only when gaming. So I decided to look at the frosting in a different light. Instead of throwing in the towel, I decided to look at it as an extra coat of paint - a filter as they say in the military modeling side of things.

This way, I decided, I would go over only the metallic parts and the blue and green camo. The rest I left as is. This reduced the work a lot. Then I proceeded to give the other areas some controlled light washes, like the planks for example, as well as the grooves on the sides.

When this was finished, I proceeded to add the last details like the energy effects along the piping, the turrets, and the particle cannon. As well as the red of the funnels. I did not have enough time to take pictures of the finished product, but I will do so tomorrow or the day after.

Overall it did not come out all that bad, even if it was not exactly how it should have been. Nonetheless, I am happy I did not have to strip it bare and start from scratch.

Well, as usual, that is all for tonight, until I post again, farewell and good health,

Sunday, April 13, 2014

I am back with the second part of this mini-project, as well as a major problem with the work!

The next step after the basic pattern was painted in was to give the model several washes. I do this by first giving it a gloss coat, then several enamel or oil washes, then when the whole thing is dry another matt coat to kill the shine of the gloss.

I normally always use Tamiya clear gloss and matt sprays. Unfortunately, I ran out of Tamiya matt spray so I opted for a Humbrol option. I never used Humbrol sprays before, and to be honest I am experienced enough to know that I should have tested the product before using it with my models - but I didn't!

After spraying the model with Humbrol matt spray, the whole model frosted over! Now I was quite sure the environment I sprayed in was not humid! So I found it quite puzzling besides enormously frustrating.

I tried to correct the problem by adding one or two extra layers of varnish - mostly Tamiya gloss and then matting with an acrylic brush on varnish. This has the effect of leveling out the imperfections and can reduce the frosting. To my despair, this had no effect.

This means that the frosting was due to a chemical reaction between both the sprays. Doing some research on the Internet I have discovered that I am not the only one that has suffered tragedy at the hands of Humbrol's matt spray varnish!

The only two options in front of me are 1) strip the model and repaint, or 2) try to touch it up. I opted for the second option.

I will continue this post next Wednesday. I hope to have finished it by then. If not, then that means my attempt at patching up did not work and the model went into the dip!

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

I am back to Dystopian Wars, and the ongoing fulfillment of one of my New Year's resolutions - to paint up a small force for this fantastic game. I will also be posting new posts of the Minotaur's vs Lamenter's vignette - a project long overdue. This will be coming after this series of posts on the Aristotle.

So let's get on topic shall we? The battleship I am painting up is from the Covenant of Antarctica Naval Battle Group, the fist battle group that came out for this faction. This is the basis of the force I will be playing with.

Like almost every miniature I have from Spartan Games, the figures are crisp and clean and need minimal attention. To be honest though, the Daedulus Class Large Flyer deed need some attention due to mould lines but nothing insurmountable.

After washing the model with warm water, soap and an old toothbrush, I gave it a black undercoat and an offwhite basecoat.

I then proceeded to add the camouflage, and paint in the metallic parts. I wanted to keep a theme with the other models in the fleet, so I kept the metallic the same at least.

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I then proceeded to add washes to the metallic parts - black for the chainmail parts and brown for the copper parts. The next step are the enamel and oil washes which I will cover in the next post.